The Deprofessionalization of Teaching

I’ve ranted before about high-stakes testing and the negative consequences it has on the education of children, but a post I read online recently in a teacher forum has taken my concerns to a whole new level.

A teacher was talking about how much she likes “THE TEST” that my state gives each fall.  Why?  Because with all of the ”review packets” this teacher was planning to jam into a massive cram session during the first month-and-a-half of school, fall lesson planning “is easy.”  She gleefully reported that she was already all set for the first couple of months of school.

So there it is: Teaching has officially been deprofessionalized.

Let me make something clear for any teacher who stumbles across this page:

YOU CANNOT KNOW WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO TEACH YOUR STUDENTS TWO MONTHS IN ADVANCE. 

Let that sink in for a moment.  Read it again.

Real teaching involves meeting students where they are at and teaching in their zone of proximal development.  Real teaching adapts and adjusts based on reflections of what’s already transpired in lessons past.  Real teaching means that WHAT YOU WILL TEACH TOMORROW DEPENDS UPON WHAT HAPPENS TODAY.

If you aren’t teaching like that, you aren’t a professional.  If your district doesn’t allow you to teach like that (perhaps by mandating the use of scripted lessons or devising strict pacing plans that must be followed), then your entire district is unprofessional.  If that’s what we want “teachers” to do — all follow the same script at the same pace down the same list of standards — why not just film a really charismatic presenter as she lectures about these various standards, and then show the videos to every child in America?  It’d have the same effect and be a whole lot cheaper.

Or we could get back to being professionals again, and we could base our teaching on the actual students that we serve.

Educational Technology, Part 2

My previous post asked the question, “Why is educational technology so far behind?”  Through the comments and emails I’ve received, it turns out that although there’s not an Amazon-like behemoth of educational sites just yet, perhaps there are some smaller, less-well-known sites out there that are on the cutting edge of doing just what I had described.

Jennifer points us to aleks.com which, if we believe its introductory video, claims to learn where a child is at mathematically and then move them forward in their zone of proximal development.

I am also pleased to see that the state of California has started an Open Source Textbook Project where teachers can collaboratively use wikis to write future textbooks.  The project doesn’t go as far as I’d like — the goal is still to publish textbooks, but just more cheaply — but it is a great start at using some of the incredible cognitive surplus that is out there waiting to be tapped into.

In the comments of the previous post, Rebecca Haden notes, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, ”An Amazon-esque educational experience could do away with schools as we know them — that is, schools with layer upon layer of expensive admin and legislation and New Programs, each hailed with a change of buzzwords and a new T-shirt for everyone.  Who’s going to back that?”  Certainly many people who make money from this existing setup won’t back it, but I’m guessing your typical taxpayer — who personally is struggling financially right about now — is going to get more vocal in demanding that it happen sooner rather than later. 

Educational technology is lagging behind other sectors, but I can’t help but wonder if we may be on the verge of a really transformative era that redefines the way we educate our populace.

Why Is Educational Technology So Far Behind?

Money obviously commands more attention that children do.  At least that’s certainly what it looks like as we take a stroll around the Internet.

When I go to Amazon.com, the site knows me.  It anticipates my future tastes and purchases based on purchases I’ve made in the past and behaviors of other similar customers Amazon has encountered.  Similarly, ITunes makes some pretty good guesses as to what I want to hear next by gleaning information from my past listening habits.

So why is there no academic site out there that offers a comprehensive K-12 math (or earth science, or spanish, or whatever) program that quickly learns where kids are at and immediately begins to take them through a progression of learning based on their zone of proximal development?  Why are we still downloading worksheets from EdHelper or playing that infernal Math Baseball on Funbrain or watching videos on BrainPop instead of having a website that nails down, over time, that Johnny is a visual learner who is strong on the basic math facts but struggles with multi-step story problems and logic problems, and then works to cure it through targeted (visual!) practice? 

Why, in a web 2.0 world for consumers, does the internet still look like a web 1.0 brochure in terms of academic opportunities for kids?

Academic Rigor: How Hard Is Too Hard?

An email blast was sent out to a bunch of us educational bloggers from the nice folks over at www.2mminutes.com, letting us know that they’ve got a new challenge out there entitled, “Are You Smarter Than a Third-World 10th Grader?“  That link allows you to try your hand at India’s 10th grade exams in a variety of subjects, the idea being — of course — that most of us will struggle greatly with these tests.  The same types of challenges have been offered to American adults (and specifically Congressmen) with U.S. exams, typically with similarly dismal results.

So, if successful adults can’t pass tests being given to high school students — both here and overseas — what are we to make of all of this?  That the world is getting more competitive and our kids need to be smarter than previous generations are?  That most of what people are taught is forgotten, so we should focus on creating logical thinkers and excellent searchers who will be able to find whatever specific information they need in a hurry?  That much of what passes as academic “rigor” is really just worthless stuff that no one needs to know?

The big new thing here in Michigan is that all high school students must pass Algebra 2 to graduate.  There are 50 mandatory benchmarks and 13 recommended benchmarks in Algebra 2 here in Michigan.  As an example, one of these 63 benchmarks reads: “Use special values of the inverse trigonometric equations to solve trigonometric equations over specific intervals (e.g. 2 sin x – 1 = 0 for 0 < x < 2 pi).” 

I think we’re off track here.  In our push to be competitive globally, we’ve focused on rigor to the point where we’ve lost track of facilitating actual learning.  I don’t believe that every child is Michigan is truly capable of understanding special values of the inverse trigonometric equations.  Nor do I believe that there is any value in trying to force every student to learn that; doing so will just force students to try to memorize things without understanding them, which is downright harmful.

Since when did we think that every child in America should be college-bound and be taking AP classes, anyway?

Everyday Math and “Spiraling”

Everyday Math (aka Chicago Math), a K-6 math program endured by over 2.8 million children, is set up based on a belief in something that they call “spiraling.”  Wikipedia describes this process well: “Mastery of a strand is not required to move on to concepts of another strand… The key principle in regards to spiraling and distributed practice is that mastery and fluency in basic skills are goals that should be achieved long after they are first introduced.”

One part of this concept makes sense — kids need to return to topics with some frequency throughout the school year.  The problem with spiraling the way Everyday Math does it is that kids never get a chance to feel successful as mathematicians.  Just as they’re working toward figuring some concept out, the Everyday Math series they’re using has moved on to something else.  

It strikes me that spiraling is the epitome of the “mile wide, one inch deep” type of teaching we’ve fallen into here in the United States.  To anyone who is considering acquiring Everyday Math: don’t!  If you’re stuck using it, try grouping the similar material together into units of study that allow students to delve deeper into concepts before moving on.  Doing this (and supplementing it with outside resources) enabled me to boost students’ morale much higher than when I solely used Everyday Math as it was designed.